


The Fade Has It In For Those With Talent

by shortredselfships



Series: A Herald Indeed [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Other, The Harrowing (Dragon Age), Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23596030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortredselfships/pseuds/shortredselfships
Summary: Minerva's Harrowing is upon her, and the Fade (or perhaps the Circle) wants to see just how powerful she is. She's talented, that's for sure.
Series: A Herald Indeed [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698448





	The Fade Has It In For Those With Talent

**_Summer of 9:33 Dragon, Ostwick Circle_ **

It's not even dawn when Minerva is roused from her sleep at the sound of movement by the door. She had been hypervigilant these past few weeks- waking at the slightest sounds, shadows in her peripherals, voices that fade out as soon as they call her name in the night. It could also be the strange sensation in her gut.

Being a spirit mage freaking sucks sometimes. She swears she's being haunted by something. If it wasn't learning that demonic presence gives her headaches, Tranquil make her ears ring a bit due to lack of a spirit, it was her own paranoia. Damn it. Now she won't go be able to back to sleep.

"Trevelyan?" Ser Gwendolyn's voice is soft, and Minerva appreciates it. It didn't mean anything since Ser Gwendolyn was always soft-spoken, but Lydia did say she needed to remember the small victories. "Oh!" Perhaps turning to look at her as if she had been wide awake for the past hour rather than the past two minutes wasn't the greatest of ideas. "Come with me." 

First Enchanter Nolan and Knight-Commander Alexandria nodded in acknowledgement and Minerva knew what was to happen.

She was unafraid. She would pass, just like with almost all her tests. _Except the ones where people stay alive outside of spirit healing. Or anything arithmetic related that doesn't have to do with inventory, liquid and dry ingredients for potions, poultices and the like._

Nolan gives her a smile. She knows he has faith in her. She hears Lydia wax poetic about her, even if Minerva felt and thought otherwise.

"The Harrowing is nothing to fear, but keep your wits about you. You have always been sensitive to the residents of the Fade. Remember they are not all your friends." 

"Understood." Every step she takes feels heavier than before and faces she would rather not think about pop up in her mind. She's in the top 10% of her dorm, she cannot afford to fail. The lyrium is cold, like not quite ready gelatin, but she is less concerned about the texture than the shifting colors and sudden weightlessness she feels.

A beige sky and craggy terrain is not the scenario she expected for her Harrowing. Veilfire lines the path ahead, whatever demon was lying in wait for her welcomed her like an old friend.

_The Fade is like clay, molded by our perceptions and the Veil our potter's wheel,_ she remembers her granny say the first time she summoned a will o' wisp under adult supervision in the balmy spring mornings of Dairsmuid. She knew that her Harrowing would come, and she would finally have a chance to see past the treeline of the west exit for the first time in ten years. Unlike her other classmates, she never feared the Fade as much as they did. Being one of the few resident healers, she picked up her maternal heritage's thought patterns of the Fade for the sake of efficiency. How can one help heal a child with nightmares when they too were scared of the spirits best suited for the job?

Still, it normally wasn't so dreary when she visited. It wasn't usually so craggy and brown and awful, not everywhere. This had to be demon camp. Great.

She finds Valor and Wisdom before any other kind of spirit and honestly she was glad for it. Valor tests her mettle, as it is wont to do. Minerva was a healer with a warrior heart and the sword, not staff, says as much. She was no knight-enchanter, but she dreamed of it as a little girl. Still, she prefers to help more than chop things down, which says little for her violent urges when she is close to losing her temper.

Wisdom's advice troubles her more than she is willing to admit. _You must face your deepest regrets if you wish to be whole again. Power is taken only if you let it be._

Her migraine begins. Pride is first, wearing her face, telling her things about herself she had forgotten in her lifelong haste to be of use since she didn't deserve to be loved. It hissed that she was a fool to be so meek when it congratulated her on being strong enough to be granted a sword and not the usual staff. 

"Wait, you've done this before? Void dammit. Just when I thought this couldn't get any worse, we summon demons as a ritual despite forbidding it. What else is new?"

_You think the outside world values the meek and humble and_ obedient? _Fortune favors the bold, little one. Opportunity is created, and you have created such. You could go to the estate, back to Rivain._

"I can do that once I beat you. I don't need pride, just competence." 

_How gallant of you. Yet you are their prodigy, living proof that mages are capable of more, so much more. Simply let me in, and I will show them what we can accomplish when man and spirit join together._ She draws her blade to its bellybutton(...?) looking it straight in the eyes.

"There are many others, many far better and more adjusted than me." Pride doesn't go down without a fight, but still, she is trapped. With annoyance, she realizes that Pride wasn't her key back out.

Rage seemed to piggyback on the things Pride had no business saying, reminding her that she was betrayed by the Order and her fellow apprentices. 

Self-loathing never seemed to work so well until now. She's glad for it. These feelings... How useless was her name to actually make things better, how stupid was her preteen self, trusting the knights? What could she say? That it was all an accident? Sure, tell that to the apprentices that stole her notes and wrote "Templar Tramp" all over the section on Valor and Compassion. Tell that to the adults Lydia had to scowl at when they think she didn't know the snide comments about mage sexual purity was for her student. Tell that to the Templars who try to hide their laughter when Minerva looked more visibly uncomfortable than other young teens when the Enchanters gave the "talk". 

But that is still not the demon who wishes to devour her. A well placed frost spell dispatches it quickly.

The demon that is her key comes disguised as a full fledged mage in purple coming to research with what Ostwick has to offer. She feels her migraine alleviate, just a little. Too many late night extensive readings. 

"Hello, young miss, do you know where I can find the section for herbology?" Minerva got up from her desk. 

"Second floor, eight bookshelf on the left. Here, I'll show you." 

"You are knowledgeable about your books, miss. May I ask your name?" 

"Nothing a child could repeat if they don't want to be caned." The mage laughed, acting scandalized yet interested. 

"Surely your parents had enough sense to call you something that can be repeated in polite conversation."

" _They_ did. Few here call me that. Usually it's something that rhymes with store." That earned a laugh, before she felt a wave of nausea hit her.

Through her memories, Desire flips through them like pages of a picture book, and Minerva could not resist the rise of humiliated disgust that a particular set of armor invokes whenever it comes in view. Even now, she feels heat lick at her fingertips as the urge to burn something grows stronger. But like with all her initial plans of disproportional violence towards others, her craving for human connection again, she squashes it with impunity. She did not deserve companionship, not after she had failed everyone so spectacularly by trusting those who had authority over her.

_You were young, thought you could trust them,_ the demon seemed almost genuine in its compassion as it painted a fuller picture, one Minerva hated to admit was probably truer than it likely intends. Just outside the edges of her memories, her experience, there that armor stood, with desire in its gaze. Desire for someone who saw it as one would a family member, someone they could never make theirs regardless of station, waiting for the perfect time to corrupt her. She wasn't even thirteen. It makes her recoil. His arms are warm and comforting, the ports of Dairsmuid-

Wait, why the ports? And where did this sheer curtain come from?

"Come back to bed, love," a deep male voice purred, deeply tanned arms, broad chest invading her space. In a very undignified yelp, she jumped backwards, seeing a handsome stranger. The smell of paprika fills her nose and she feels like sneezing. He holds out his arms, inviting her close.

"I'm fine for now." She is not fine, this was not fine, but she was having a hard time remembering why. "I should visit Papa and Granny soon. I hadn't seen them at all since we docked." 

"We have only been here half a day," he chuckled, blankets shifting to- oh, oh no, look away, _look away!_ The laughter gets louder, she feels an invisible tug in his direction... like a tail? "Come back to bed, my darling. They will be there when I finish with you." Then she remembers. A tail. _Desire_. Void _dammit_. "Always so modest," he chuckles. 

"No. This is wrong, I'm not in Rivain." The grip becomes tighter and it takes everything in her to summon fire as she reached. The demon cradles its tail, looking offended. "You stay back!"

_And let you miss out on the one chance you have to experience the beauty of intimacy with no serious consequence?_ There is so much riding on her success. She cannot succumb. _Just imagine, being with someone, because_ **you** _want to. Not to protect someone, not to keep up appearances. True lovers. Does that not entice you? You deserve a man who looks at_ **women** _, not little girls-_

Minerva sat ramrod straight, arm extended as if she were still stabbing the demon. The Templars looked at her with astonishment, Knight-Commander Alexandria with pride and mild amusement as Nolan averted his eyes. Something wasn't right, and there is this... stabbing pain in the pit of her stomach. When she looked down, there was a big red stain... down there. 

_Well, shit._

**Author's Note:**

> This is an Inquisitor whose story I never fully expanded upon when I got into the Dragon Age fandom. There is such a lack of concrete information on Ostwick, but using sedate would not be one I'd use. In comparison to Kirkwall, sure but still.


End file.
